Yukio Kubota

1940年、とある農村に住む青年、黒川久蔵は日中戦争の激化に伴い徴兵を受け、戦地へと赴いた。それから4年後、久蔵は頭部に深い火傷を負い、四肢を失った姿で村に帰還する。戦線で爆弾の爆発に巻き込まれた彼は、声帯を傷つけて話すこともできない上、耳もほとんど聴こえない状態になっていた。「不死身の兵士」と新聞に書き立てられ、少尉にまで昇進した久蔵を村人は「軍神様」と呼び崇め称える。しかし親戚たちは彼の変わり果てた姿に絶望し、妻であるシゲ子に世話を全て押し付けてしまう。

Nursing home "Yuyoso". Many lonely old people live there, including botanist Taro Makiso, a physicist, an actor, a bar mom, and a chef. Maki has spent most of his life studying botany, and has lived without regard for entertainment, drinking, women, or everything else in the world. Then came my 80th birthday. He and a young staff member go digging for wild yam and find a mysterious golden flower. It was the flower of immortality, the "Golden Flower", which was said to bloom beside the Himalayan Virgin, which he had been looking for for many years. From that day onwards, fragments of memories from his youth, which he had intentionally sealed off in order to immerse himself in botany, surged into Maki in a whirlpool.

Documentary about the great Japanese documentary maker Tsuchimoto Noriaki made a couple of years before his death.

昭和20年、東京大空襲で両親を亡くし、兄夫婦と暮らす悦子は縁談を勧められる。相手は密かに想いを寄せる明石少尉の親友、永与少尉。当日、緊張のあまりしどろもどろになりながらも、真摯な愛情を示す永与に悦子は好感を抱く。数日後、悦子は明石の特攻隊出撃が決まったことを知らされる。

3年前広島に落とされた原爆で家族や友を失い、一人暮らしをする美津江の前に、突然亡くなったはずの父が現れる。彼女は父に勤務先の図書館で会った青年の話をする。

Kenzo was behind bars for killing a gangster. Upon his release, he goes to live with his son, whose marriage is on the rocks. His 14-year-old granddaughter Tamako is ostracized when she discovers that her grandfather is a murderer. Kenzo soon helps defend Tamako from bullies at school. When Tamako stands up for herself, she comes to believe that she has inherited some of her grandfather’s great strength. Eventually, an associate of the man Kenzo killed comes looking for revenge, along with the dead man’s son.

Commencing well-respected Nippon director Kazuo Kuroki's sixth decade behind the camera, "A Boy's Summer in 1945" (literally "A Beautiful Summer in Kirishima") is a lyric, novelistic drama set in the countryside in the last days before Japan's surrender ending WWII. Striking a welcome retro note in its languid pacing and delicate handling of seriocomic ensemble threads, handsome production is a natural for fests. It might also prove a cornerstone for retrospectives or ancillary releases of works by a helmer ("Preparation of the Festival," "Ronin-gai") who's long been appreciated at home but has won just limited attention abroad.

This is a film about seven artists. It's also a film about seven people who are mentally handicapped. In the course of this touching film, we discover how art may provide a route to the human interior.

Taku Shinjo spins this rural drama about ancient taboos and encroaching modernity. Takamine (Gitan Otsuru) is a big-city workaholic sent to a small remote island to seal a business deal. His predecessor almost managed to convince the island's 17 inhabitants to sell their stake and make way for a resort hotel -- that is, before he died under dubious circumstances. Takamine finds the islanders polite and kind but unwilling to discuss business; instead, they tell him to become an islander. So the city-slicker stuffed shirt loses his tie and starts to help the women plant and the men fish. He soon makes his acquaintance with Takako (Mitsuko Baisho), the widowed daughter of the island's chief. She lives alone with her crazed son who is kept Jane Eyre-style chained to a stake. One moon-lit night, their mutual attraction boils over, resulting in a naked, passionate roll on the beach.

Tatsuya is on a honeymoon in Australia. A couple of unfortunate encounters land him in jail, where he’s imprisoned without a chance of ever getting out again. His wife tries her best to launch an appeal, but it’s Tatsuya’s inmates who are his best chance of escaping his current predicament.

In 1964, a chemical factory in Niigata Prefecture dumped mercury into the Agano River, the beginning of a manmade tragedy that would affect locals for years to come. Mercury poisoning led to high occurrences of Minamata disease, a neurological syndrome that causes severe physical and psychological ailments and death. Sato Makoto and his crew of seven spent three years in Niigata documenting the life and thoughts of locals.

Shiragaki is renowned for its ceramics. This documentary follows people who must overcome physical disabilities to work in the town.

After the death of her mother a young woman wants to meet her real father

Young Kinu Yamabe is drawn to low-born Onimaru, who is vital and charismatic, but viewed by his father as a demon. After her first period, Kinu suffers the fate of any women born near the Sacred Mountain: she must leave the Mountain and serve as a priestess.

The movie compiles footage taken by Ogawa Production for a period of more than ten years after the collective moved to Magino village. Unique to this film are fictional reenactments of the history of the village in the sections titled "The Tale of Horikiri Goddess" and "The Origins of Itsutsudomoe Shrine". Ogawa combines all the techniques that were developed in his previous films to simultaneously express multiple layers of time—the temporality of rice growing and of human life, personal life histories, the history of the village, the time of the Gods, and new time created through theatrical reenactment—bring them into a unified whole. The faces of the Magino villagers appear in numerous roles transcending time and space—sometimes as individuals, sometimes as people who carry the history of the village in their memories, sometimes as storytellers reciting myths, and even as members of the crowd in the fictional sequences.

京都から帰京した文芸評論家の秋葉大三郎は、東京駅に降りた時、「鯖の味噌煮が食べたい」と珍しいことを言っていた銀座のホステスを想いだした。里美というそのホステスのいるバー「魔呑」へ友人、能村と出かけた秋葉は彼女をデートに誘った。デートの日、泥臭さが抜けきらないが素朴なところに魅かれた秋葉は、里美を抱いた。里美は本名を八島霧子といった。霧子は不思議な魅力を持っていた。髪形やファッションを変えると見違えるように変身した。秋葉には編集者で38歳の田部史子という愛人がいたが、霧子と付合うようになってから、仲が遠のいていた。たちまち「魔呑」の売れっ子となった霧子を別荘に連れて行った秋葉は、そこで史子と出くわす。史子は秋葉の心変わりを知った。霧子は「魔呑」を辞め、秋葉は彼女のために高級マンションを与えた。彼は日毎に容姿も肉体もいい女になっていく霧子に充足感を覚えていた。霧子が代官山に洋服のリサイクルの店を出したいと言ってきた。二千万近い資金は秋葉が都合し、霧子は店の名を秋葉のアと霧子のキから「アンティック・阿木」と名付けた。新しい情報と品物の仕入れの為に霧子がニューヨークに発った。秋葉も同行するはずだったが、母の久子が脳血栓で倒れたため、仕方なくニューヨーク在住の商社員、室井達彦に霧子の世話を頼む。ある日、秋葉は「阿木」から出て来た史子と会った。彼女とは一年近くも会っていなかったが、昔のことにはふれず逆にサバサバした様子だった。霧子が帰国した。出迎えた秋葉は別人のように美しくなった霧子を見て呆然とする。霧子の身辺は急に多忙になった。マスコミの付合いなどで秋葉が介入する余地がないほどだ。霧子は自立する女に変りかけていた。ある夜、別れ話をきりだした霧子はマンションを飛びだした。追いかけた秋葉は史子の部屋に入って行く霧子を見て呆然とした。二人は半年前からの知り合いだと言う。久子の葬儀の日、霧子が焼香に現われ、秋葉に別れの理由を語る。霧子はまだ秋葉を愛していたが、史子と彼の関係を知り愛の不確さを感じたのだ。そして、男に去られる前に生甲斐を見つけて去って行くことを考えたのだった。

Based on the novel of the same name by Yoshio Kataoka.

Kazumi - whose sensitivity does not undermine her strength when she handles her second husband's emotional conflicts with the wisdom of an adult. Kazumi's younger and more inexperienced husband Hideo is continually suspicious of her fidelity.

Set in the wilderness of Hokkaido, the story of a couple in their 30s and a couple in their 20s is drawn, and the subtle emotions of the two men and women are depicted with intense Eros and delicate images under the theme of marriage exchange.

Yahagi Michiko is accosted and raped walking home one evening. From there she maneuvers the logistics of the police, hospital, and criminal justice system while balancing her home life including romantic relationships.

30以上も年のちがう、妻ある詩人を愛したオンナ。他人に白い目でみられながら、ひとりぼっちでオトコが通って来るのをひたすら待つ。そして二人をつなぐのは、あまりのいとおしさからくる激しい肉欲である。

博多郊外に住む一家の4姉妹の次女・奈津子。ある日、四女とともに前衛劇団の公演を観たことで彼女の中の何かが触発される。そして、そこで知り合った写真家・中垣に自分のヌード写真を撮ってほしいと頼むのだった…。

早大文学部に通うまり子は、アルバイト先で知り合った同じ大学の橋本と同棲していた。そんなある日、以前つきあっていたルポライターの恒雄が戻ってきた…。

東京の生活になじめないまま、忠夫は故郷である信濃に帰ってきた。親友の哲治にスナックへ連れて行かれた忠夫は、そこで働くあけみに一目惚れする。哲治が金を借りに忠夫の家を訪ねてくるが、スナックのホステスいずみと東京へ行くためだと言う。忠夫が反対するのも聞かず二人は金を持って町を出てしまうが、哲治は東京でいずみに捨てられ、すぐに町に帰ってきた。あきらめきれない哲治はいずみの働くスナックへ行くが、彼女の昔の男に殴られてしまう。忠夫も男に殴られたが、あけみから「店が終わるまで待っていて」と言われ…。

高校野球の3塁手として活躍していたサード。友人のⅡBと女の子ふたりで、「どこか大きな町へ行こう」と話し合う。そのためにはお金が必要だと4人は売春を始める。が、ある日ヤクザにつかまったサードは傷害事件を起こしてしまい少年院へ入れられてしまう…。

A young Japanese man finds himself in the company of a strange, effeminate gay man and a girl with a seedy sexual history and who even now is pregnant again. They share a predisposition for drug use and spend time together in an old house. He refuses the advances of the gay man, who then commits suicide. When a gang administers a beating to him, his father re-enters the scene and takes him home, along with the girl. However, the girl has decided to have her baby, and she goes to live with its father.

In the mid-1970s, protests were waning across Japan after the Red Army scandal of Asama Cottage. In Sanrizuka, people were weary of the violence and the airport was well under construction. As for Ogawa Productions, they invited criticism by pulling out and moving to a quiet village in northern Japan. But when protesters back in Sanrizuka erected a tall tower at the end of one runway, they sent a crew to document what happened. This became the final film of the Sanrizuka Series.

昭和30年代初頭。町の信用金庫に勤める20歳の楯男には、シナリオ作家になるという夢があった。そんな楯男にとってひそかに想いを寄せる存在が幼なじみの涼子だった。しかし、涼子には恋人がいて、どうすることもできない楯男は、隣家の精神異常の娘と寝てしまう…。

After the waning of the protests in Sanrizuka, Ogawa Pro started questioning the future of the collective and looking for other subjects to film. Following the method developed in the previous films, the filmmakers moved to the slum of Kotobuchi in the port city of Yokohama, where more than 6000 people were struggling to get by without any means of survival, exposed to industrial accidents and diseases. The result is one of the most moving films produced by the collective, a series of beautifully filmed portraits, voicing the silenced stories and songs of a group of people living in this community. Credit: ICA London

In 1972, Miyuki tells her ex-lover Kazuo that she's going to Okinawa with their son. Kazuo decides to film her. He narrates his visits to her there: first while her flatmate is Sugako, a woman Miyuki is attracted to; then, while she works at a bar and is with Paul, an African-American soldier. Once, Kazuo brings his girlfriend, Sachiko. We see Miyuki with her son, with other bar girls, and with Sachiko. Miyuki, pregnant, returns to Tokyo and delivers a mixed-race child on her own with Kazuo and Sachiko filming. She joins a women's commune, talks about possibilities, enjoys motherhood, and is uninterested in a traditional family. Does the filmmaker have a point of view?

昭和11年に起こった2・26事件の理論的指導者として処刑された、北一輝の半生と人間ドラマを描く吉田喜重監督の問題作。失敗に終わった5・15クーデターに参加していた無名の下級兵士は右翼思想家の北に出会う。北は今行われようとしている計画の全貌を彼に打ち明けるが…。

The first in a series of independent documentaries that Tsuchimoto made of the mercury poisoning incident in Minamata, Japan.

A survivor of the tragic mass suicides on Tokashiki Island in 1945 falls in love with a near-mute motorcycle engineer.

In 1968 the plan by the government to construct a new international airport in the fields of Sanrizuka near Tokyo unleashed one of the most important and enduring social upheavals in the history of postwar Japan. The plan sought to evict thousands of farmers from their lands without any sort of respect for the locals’ rights. Their resistance to eviction was met with extreme violence by the police. Activists from all over the country, including thousands of students, joined with the farmers in their mounting struggle. As the combats in Sanrizuka became more intense and the numbers of police increased, the collective became more involved in the fighting. Sanrizuka: The Three Day War was what Ogawa called a “bullet film”, an immediate and powerful piece of agitprop shot in three days and intended to be seen as quickly and widely as possible. Credit: ICA London

This film documents student preparations for the final phases of the 1969 protests against the renewal of the security treaty.

Aido is a beautiful woman cursed with an insatiable appetite for sex. After an affair with a young student, she engages in several other affairs in which she can no longer tell fantasy from reality.

　松竹ヌーヴェル・ヴァーグ出身の吉田喜重監督が、大正のアナーキスト大杉栄が三角関係のもつれから刺された事件を取り上げ、大正時代と現代（昭和40年代）のそれぞれの風俗と人物たちを、時間軸と空間軸を交錯させ前衛的な手法で描いた愛と憎しみのドラマ。出演は細川俊之、岡田茉莉子。映画のモデルとなったひとりが、名誉毀損・プライバシー侵害を理由に、映画上映禁止の訴訟を起こしたことでも知られる。ちなみにこの時の請求は棄却されている。

Rokurō starts a part-time job on a fishing boat, but the ship has an engine failure in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Shingo and Ritsuko have a baby: Takashi. They happen to be a happy couple, but soon Ritsuko wants to know who is the true father of Takashi, born by artificial insemination.